Yugoslavia in 1994

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A federal republic comprising the republics of Serbia and Montenegro, Yugoslavia borders Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, Macedonia and Albania to the south, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, and Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west. Area: 102,173 sq km (39,449 sq mi). Pop. (1994 est.): 10,515,000. Cap.: Belgrade. Monetary unit: new dinar (second) or "super dinar," with (Sept. 26, 1994) a par value (from January 24) equal to the Deutsche Mark (free rates of 1.56 new dinars [second] = U.S. $1 and 2.47 new dinars [second] = £1 sterling); hyperinflation caused major ongoing devaluations in 1993, but inflation was close to zero in 1994. President in 1994, Zoran Lilic; prime minister, Radoje Kontic.

Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia since 1989, strengthened his grip on power in Yugoslavia in 1994. Internationally, Milosevic, for so long condemned as a warmonger and even a war criminal, completed his truly breathtaking metamorphosis, begun in 1993, into a champion of peace in former Yugoslavia.

Although Milosevic’s Socialist (former Communist) Party of Serbia had secured only 123 seats in the country’s 250-seat single-chamber assembly in the December 1993 election, it managed to attract to its side eight opposition deputies. After lengthy negotiations, on March 15 the Socialists formed a government with Mirko Marjanovic, a Socialist deputy, as prime minister. The Socialists came under strong attack from their erstwhile ally, Vojislav Seselj, a Bosnian Serb and leader of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party. Following a fight with another deputy in the Belgrade assembly, Seselj was deprived of his parliamentary immunity, arrested, and charged with defaming the president of Serbia and incitement to disorder and unrest.

Several trials of Serbs charged with having committed atrocities while serving with Serb paramilitary units (including Seselj’s) in Croatia in 1991 and Bosnia in 1992-93 were held as part of Milosevic’s policy of distancing himself from those wars. This implied no relaxation of government control over the mass media. Purges were carried out in both state-controlled television and the Politika newspaper and magazine publishing house. Belgrade continued to keep a firm grip on Kosovo, the former autonomous province with an Albanian majority, reannexed to Serbia in 1989. In Sandzak, a Muslim-majority region in Serbia contiguous to Bosnia, 24 local members of the mainly Muslim Party of Democratic Action were sentenced on October 13 to jail terms of up to six years for "plotting to violate the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia."

Milosevic also succeeded in maintaining indirect political control over the Serbs in the occupied territories in Croatia and obtained the reelection of his man, Milan Martic, as president in January. Milosevic was, however, less successful in imposing his will on Radovan Karadzic, leader of the so-called Serbian Republic in Bosnia. Milosevic repeatedly appealed in July to Karadzic and his army commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, to accept the plan for Bosnia prepared by the "contact group" (Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the U.S.) that offered 49% of the republic’s territory to the Serbs and 51% to the Muslim-Croat federation. Karadzic’s rejection of the plan led to the imposition by Serbia on August 4 of an embargo on deliveries to Bosnian Serbs of all but essential medical and humanitarian supplies. Serbia’s media links with the Bosnian Serbs were also cut. On September 24 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 943, partially lifting for a period of 100 days sanctions originally imposed on Yugoslavia by the UN Security Council in May 1992 for its role in the war against Bosnia.

This diplomatic success for Milosevic helped increase his popularity at home. His stock had already risen after the introduction on January 24 of the economic plan prepared by Dragoslav Avramovic, a former official of the International Monetary Fund. The plan introduced a high degree of financial and fiscal responsibility and tempered Serbia’s hyperinflation, which had reached an annual percentage rate of 313 million by January 1994. The "super dinar" (unofficially called "avram") pegged to the Deutsche Mark became Yugoslavia’s new currency.

Yugoslavia’s relations with Hungary improved following a visit to Belgrade in January by Geza Jeszenszky, Hungary’s foreign minister. The slow thaw in the relations with Croatia continued with the establishment of diplomatic missions in Zagreb and Belgrade. Following elections on December 19, the Socialist Party of Serbia was three seats short of a majority in the parliament. Ethnic Hungarians, however, hesitated to join the government, fearing that their participation in a coalition would weaken their demand for autonomy in the province of Vojvodina. K.F. Cviic